Jyoti Bansal, the Man Who Was Rejected 20 Times Before Selling His Company to Cisco for $3.7 Billion

In the coming days and even weeks, dining table conversation across India is likely to be dominated by Jyoti Bansal. He is, after all, the Indian-American business entrepreneur who has sold his company AppDynamics to Cisco for a whopping $3.7 billion.

While most may not even have heard of AppDynamics, a company that makes software that analyses applications, Jyoti has been steadily working on making AppDynamics a success for 17 years now. In fact he had to go through 20 rejections from venture capitalists before he was even able to get the initial funding of $5 million to start the company.

Here are some incredible facts about the man who refused to quit:

Jyoti moved to the US in 2000 after graduating from IIT Delhi

Originally from Ajmer, Jyoti got his first taste of being an entrepreneur when he worked at his father’s own company that sold machinery to farmers. Then after graduating from the prestigious IIT Delhi with a BS degree, he moved to the US and started working in a series of startups while also developing the idea behind
AppDynamics on the side.

AppDynamics was started in 2008 after a seven-year waiting period

While he was able to get a work visa at US in 2000 itself, he had to wait for seven years until he was able to obtain the employment authorization document, which is crucial for anyone to start their own company.

He faced 20 rejections in the beginning

While he is in the news for having successfully sold his company for billions, initially he could not get a single investor to give him as much as $5 million. After 20 rejections, he was finally able to put together the seed amount for him to start his dream. Eight rounds of pitching later, his company was able to raise $350 million in funding. Of course, that fades in comparison to how much it has been sold for now. Today it employs 1,200 people in total.

He is not done creating companies

Given that his share from the sale to Cisco comes up to $520 million, one would be excused for thinking that Jyoti would never want to work again. But he has made it clear that he wants to continue with his dream of creating several companies in the future and solving problems through technology.

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